tonka
Senior Member
From another forum i'm on, no one can figure out what this is... what do you think HEF
This little thing is amazing, but we have no idea what it is. (cliff notes at bottom)
A buddy has a wood burning stove to heat his shop. Another buddy dropped off a trash can full of old wood (60-70yrs). 2x4s, 4x4s and other wood pieces from the renovation of an old house. This one piece stood out because it looked like it had a piece of metal about the size of a dime pressed into it. They threw it into the stove anyway. When he cleaned the ashes out the next day he found that the metallic piece had much more beneath the surface of the wood and we cannot figure out how it got in there.
Here are some pics and some facts ....
Here is the piece after it was pulled form the ashes the next day. Ignore the pen marks, somebody was goofing off before it got to really intriguing us. The dime looking portion was all we could see. It was pretty much flush with the wood's surface. It's also not magnetic and very heavy for it's size.
We put the surface on a grinder and it did not spark at all, but it does shine up nicely.
We tacked a bolt to it and it took the weld ok. What was very strange was how well and long it held the heat. You could close palm hold the bolt, but the ball was not touchable. Took a good 15 min to cool to a temp that you could hold it 'hot potato' like.
We put it on an anvil and hit it with a mini sledge. It didn't put the slightest dent in the ball, but put several good ones in the sledge.
Next up we tried to use a punch and the sledge to test it. Very small marks on the ball land it flattened the punch.
After beating the crap out of it we were able to break the bolt from it and we could see there was little penetration from the weld. It was a simple 'close your eyes and tack' type weld, but I still expected to see some discoloration and/or penetration.
After we got the bolt off, and it was still warm. We put it in a vice and put the mapp gas to it for about 2 min (literally). It expanded and popped about a foot straight up and out of the vice. It was only slightly red at the point the gas was being applied. We dropped it in a plastic cup that was about 3/4 full of beer and it vaporized it very fast. (love that smell)
Cliffnotes:
The dime-shaped part was exposed from a piece of wood, the rest was inside the wood. It was not a piece of composite wood.
It did not melt in a wood burning stove going for 6 hrs.
It's very heavy for it's size. 1-1.25 LBS
It does not spark on a grinder wheel
It is not magnetic.
After grinding it can polish up nicely
It seems to have a cast line around the center of the ball.
A mini sledge will not dent it.
A center punch will flatten on it.
It has amazing heat retention properties.
.. so WTH is it? How'd it get in there?
Last edited:
